?????, ?????,
If one is the real learner of the path, one does not see the errors of the world,
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If one see the mistakes of others, then it is one’s mistake by “seeing and thinking only of others’ mistakes” and thus deviated from the right path.
?????, ?????,
The mistaken thinking of “others have mistakes, I do not have mistakes” is already a mistake committed by oneself.
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Thus one must remove one’s “mistake” from one’s own heart and mind, this will enable one to break free from troubles and worries.
????? ?????
The Dharma of the Awakened is within the mortal realm, it is not far away from mortal realm’s cognition
????? ?????
If one tries to seek enlightenment away from the mortal realm, then it is just like seeking rabbit with horns
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The right view is thus named as “exit” from the mortal realm, the wrong view is thus named as “within” the mortal realm.
????? ?????
By totally removing the so called or named “right” or “wrong” view, then the true nature of enligtenment will arise.
????? ?????
This poem is named the sudden school of enlightenement, it is also named as the Huge Dharma Ship.
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Through infinite cycle of crisis, one is lost by being confused and thus does not understand the teachings, yet true understanding occurs within that split moment in time.

“Anything that can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”

Logic would seem to dismiss the wild claims of any unsubstantiated dogma, propaganda, or other nonsense, effortlessly. Only the inability to acknowledge logical thinking allows debates such as these to persist.

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“My ambition is to live to see all of Physics reduced to a formula so elegant and simple that it will fit easily on the front of a t-shirt.”

Evolution by natural selection does not take a beating. It has satisfactorily explained countless observations and stood on its own as the single most accurate description of life on this planet, despite the incessant chest-beating and feces-flinging from a world full of insecure dogmatists.

Get excited all you want. OMFGZ! THEY TOREZ EVOLUSHUNZ A NEW ONE! No they didn’t. Pay attention. Study something other than your papyrus and you’ll learn something useful.

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“My ambition is to live to see all of Physics reduced to a formula so elegant and simple that it will fit easily on the front of a t-shirt.”

My name is Thomas Crosthwaite. I was raised a fundamentalist in the rural South, and am the author of an book, “I Thought I Would Never Make It throuth The 4th Grade”. At the time I was in school, it was against the law to teach evolution in that state. I became an evolutionist while in high school,when I began to see that there were things in the Bible which did not make sense.

Recently, I have debated evolutionist over the internet, and have learned that some of their arugments go beyound honest debate. Some of them are outright lies, employing the worse kinds of deception. Religion isn’t about saving people from hell. What it is really about is money and power.

The antirich propoor theme is prevalent thoughout the Bible, particularly in the first five books of the New Testament. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of an needle, than for a rich man to enter the kindom of heaven.”

Yet, many modern Christians are among the most staunch supporters of the great monoplies and canyons of wealth that comprise madern society. This is why they vote Republican, whos creed is deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy and let alone capitalism. These work against most people.

Among their arugements against evolution is that we lost the Monkey Trial in Tennessee. Everyone that knows anything about the trial knows that this is false. The judge didn’t allow any evidence of evoultion to be presented on the grounds that it was irrelevent, because the issure was not whether evoulution was true or false, but whether Scopes had taught it in voluation of the Bulter Act. He Had. http://www.freewebs.com/thomascrosthwaite/

I was raised a fundalmentalist in the rural South [Church of Christ to be exact]. While I believe that many Creationists are good honest misgided people, I must say that I do question the honesty of some of these preachers, i.e. the better educated ones. No. 1, the reason why these people are so closed minded and determined, is that they are taught to never lose an arugment.

They still try to claim that they won the “monkey trail” in Tennessee, when the truth is that no scientific evidence was allowed to be presented.

While evidence supporting evloution is intensive and the deails still debateable,the concept is now university accepted among literate people.

I was raised a fundalmentalist in the rural South [Church of Christ to be exact]. While I believe that many Creationists are good honest misgided people, I must say that I do question the honesty of some of these preachers, i.e. the better educated ones. No. 1, the reason why these people are so closed minded and determined, is that they are taught to never lose an arugment.

They still try to claim that they won the “monkey trail” in Tennessee, when the truth is that no scientific evidence was allowed to be presented.

While evidence supporting evloution is intensive and the deails still debateable,the concept is now university accepted among literate people.

Universally accepted among literate people (who don’t have the spirit of God).

Sorry, you missed a phrase.

You know, on its face, evolution can’t work. You mean nothing created something? It would be very hard to believe the the primordal slime and goo got hit with lightening and the tadpoles grew, and adapted, and then various species developed, grew, and adapted, and a food chain just happened to be the result. You got to be kidding me.

I guess I’m a skeptic. Sorry.

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Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matt 11:28-29

I was raised a fundalmentalist in the rural South [Church of Christ to be exact]. While I believe that many Creationists are good honest misgided people, I must say that I do question the honesty of some of these preachers, i.e. the better educated ones. No. 1, the reason why these people are so closed minded and determined, is that they are taught to never lose an arugment.

They still try to claim that they won the “monkey trail” in Tennessee, when the truth is that no scientific evidence was allowed to be presented.

While evidence supporting evloution is intensive and the deails still debateable,the concept is now university accepted among literate people.

Universally accepted among literate people (who don’t have the spirit of God).

Sorry, you missed a phrase.

You know, on its face, evolution can’t work. You mean nothing created something? It would be very hard to believe the the primordal slime and goo got hit with lightening and the tadpoles grew, and adapted, and then various species developed, grew, and adapted, and a food chain just happened to be the result. You got to be kidding me.

Furthermore, it seems you like to target gaps of knowledge. Any respectable biologists would never pretend to have all the answers. There’s a lot we need to still figure out. But we need to move in that direction without the arrogant certainty that religion provides - we need to move forward into the 21st century with the humility of a confused lifeform who’s trying to sort this crazy universe out.

Also, you’re “goo hit with lightning” statement - glad you brought it up! Back in 1952, the Miller-Urey experiment was able to produce 5 amino acids in the laboratory simulating lightning exposure to your “goo”. Last year, we were able to reproduce the experiment yielding 28 amino acids. The more you know!

I don’t know, doesn’t sound logical. You got to start with something to create something.

Cody B - 27 September 2009 06:03 PM

Also, you’re “goo hit with lightning” statement - glad you brought it up! Back in 1952, the Miller-Urey experiment was able to produce 5 amino acids in the laboratory simulating lightning exposure to your “goo”. Last year, we were able to reproduce the experiment yielding 28 amino acids. The more you know!

I heard that there have been experiments like this, but nothing has really come of it. But thanks.

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Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matt 11:28-29

I don’t know, doesn’t sound logical. You got to start with something to create something.

Cody B - 27 September 2009 06:03 PM

Also, you’re “goo hit with lightning” statement - glad you brought it up! Back in 1952, the Miller-Urey experiment was able to produce 5 amino acids in the laboratory simulating lightning exposure to your “goo”. Last year, we were able to reproduce the experiment yielding 28 amino acids. The more you know!

I heard that there have been experiments like this, but nothing has really come of it. But thanks.

Well if it’s logic you’re seeking…here you go! By looking into deep space, you look into the past. Light has a finite speed, the maximum speed we believe that which can be obtained by matter within the universe. (Note, it is believed that the expansion of the universe itself occurred much faster than the speed of light. It was an expansion of space, not within space) The story we’re seeing in space is one of expansion. Naturally, if the universe is expanding and cooling, then it must once have been much smaller and hotter. Makes sense, right?

So, let’s wind back the clock. Our best equipment can trace back the temperature and expansion to 13.7 billion years ago. The point of singularity. I think this is where you are confused or misinformed. A lot of people think the big bang theory states that there was just ‘bang’ a universe out of thin air. Not so much - the singularity as far as we know was infinitely dense and hot. No one knows why the universe came to existence. For all we know, another universe could have collided setting off a budding universe. Perhaps ‘why’ is the wrong question to ask. The pertinent question is how.

What we have verifiable facts for show us this much:

Background Radiation: The strongest evidence for the big bang is the radiation it left called the cosmic microwave background radiation. It indicates a uniformly hot early universe. (Another reason to believe the singularity was actually matter and not nothing) George Gamow predicted the radiation’s existence in 1948 and in the 1960’s it was confirmed.

Balance of Elements: Big Bang exactly predicts the proportion of light elements (hydrogen, helium, and lithium) seen in the universe today.

General Relativity: Einstein’s theory predicts that the universe must either be expanding or contracting - it cannot stay the same size.

And of course you could just go look outside at night - if the universe were infinitely large and old, we would receive light from every part of the universe. The night sky would be bright as day from all the incoming star light. This is called Olbers’ paradox. The big bang resolves the paradox by proposing the universe has not always existed.

Now to the “goo” and you - as a carbon based life form, this is important, so listen up! Once the universe cooled enough (roughly 300,000 years after the big bang), energy levels came down to a level where protons and atomic nuclei began to capture electrons forming the first atoms. These first atoms were Hydrogen and Helium, the two lightest elements known in the universe. Gravity, one of four forces in the universe, pulled these elements together until it’s mass collected enough to collapse on themselves. The resulting friction created enough heat to start fusion reaction, and you’ve got the first stars being born. During the course of their lives and deaths, the first massive stars created and dispersed new chemical elements into space and into other collapsing protogalatic clumps. New elements, such as carbon, oxygen, silicon, and iron were formed from the nuclear fusion in the hot cores of these stars. Heavier elements like barium and lead were formed during their deaths. The violent deaths of these stars dispersed the ingredients for life into the universe - from then, it was only a matter of time.

The origins of life - Most scientists agree the beginnings of life on Earth were linked to the accumulation of simple organic (carbon-forming) molecules in a primordial soup (your goo) in Earth’s oceans not long after their formation. The molecules originated from reactions of chemicals in Earth’s atmosphere, stimulated by energy, perhaps lightning. Within the soup, over millions of years the organic compounds reacted to form larger and more complex molecules, until a molecule appeared with the capacity to replicate itself. By its nature, these types of molecules - a rudimentary gene - became more common. Through mutations and the mechanism of natural selection, variants of this gene developed more sophisticated survival adaptations, eventually evolving into a bacteria-like cell - the precursor of all other life on Earth. The decisive event was the appearance of the self-replicator, after which living organisms would inevitably follow.

Where’s the proof?! - Ever gotten sick? It may have been due to a virus. Viruses are on the border between living and non-living matter. They self-replicate but can do so only by hijacking the metabolic machinery of animal, plant, or bacterial cells. Here we have the stepping stone from a chemical reaction to a living organism.

I certainly understand why the humans in the Bronze Age would think some all powerful god must be responsible for life. They had no knowledge of physics, DNA structure, chemistry, astro-biology, molecular and cellular structures, or nuclear reactions. Religion got people asking the right questions - unfortunately, their best guess was an invisible spaceman did it and somehow it stuck. However, my expertise lies in biology and not human society or memes so someone else can tackle the evolution of religion from our primal shamans to today’s priests and bishops.

Cody, I think there are some scientific facts that the Champ understands. He knows that sound travels, and that its speed can be measured. He knows that light travels and its speed can be measured. For example, I think he understands that if astronauts are on the moon, and he is watching them with a telescope, if they wave at him he is seeing them wave a short time ago. He understands that it took some time for the light to reach him from the moon.

However, I’m not sure if he understands that it is possible for astronomers to watch events on distant stars that may have happened a million years ago. Knowing that light travels at 186,000 miles per second, it seems that it would be easy for anyone to understand that if you look at very distant objects, as astronomers do, you are seeing events that happened a long time ago.

When Champ looks at the stars at night, I wonder if he knows that he is seeing some of them as they were 100 years ago, and some of them as they were 50,000 years ago?

If he understood that, then he would know that it would, in principle, be possible to watch human history from space. If he positioned himself 64 light years from Earth he could watch Hiroshima being destroyed by an atomic bomb. If he positioned himself about 1976 light years from Earth he could watch the trial and death of Jesus, (if such events really happened). Going further out into space he could watch the pyramids being built and so on.

Further, if he went 300,000 light years away from Earth he would notice that there were people walking around, but they were not like us - they were like pictures he’s seen of Homo neanderthalensis in National Geographic articles or other science books, or NOVA TV programs etc.

Positioning himself further and further from Earth, Champ could see human evolution from what we are now back into our primate ancestry and on back to the days when our ancestors were little rat-like creatures ducking under rocks to escape predatory dinosaurs.

Astronomers are able to witness cosmic events that happened billions of years ago. Even young children who haven’t been brainwashed by religious fundamentalism are able to understand such things. Champ may be able to understand that if he sees an asteroid hit the moon, it happened a little while ago, not when he sees it. Beyond that his imagination can’t go - it collides with Biblical folktales, stories which he thinks have been written by the creator of the Universe.

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“The simple fables of the religious of the world have come to seem like tales told to children.” - Nobel Prize recipient - Francis Crick

“It is time we recognized the boundless narcissism and self-deceit of the saved.” - Sam Harris